


A Christmas Countdown

by fairy_obvious



Series: Equations [3]
Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M, S3, Season 03, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:45:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8907739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairy_obvious/pseuds/fairy_obvious
Summary: A story of a very special Christmas and glimpses of what happened before.Ten short stories in a REVERSE chronological order. Starting off in Season 3.Advent Calendar Story for December 19If you like sweet endings and a clear-cut, linear storyline, you can read it from the end, starting from formal Chapter 10.However, if you’re feeling a little adventurous, do not hesitate to read it “as is.” It’s more fun, I promise! Just remember to turn on your inner time machine. Are you with me?





	1. Or 10.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [ascloseasthis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascloseasthis/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

A silvery lace of frost on the window panes. A faint glimmer of candles. A more reliable twinkling of Christmas lights on an immense fir tree in the middle of the hall. Quinn and Carrie are sitting in a traditional Latvian restaurant in the Old Town of Riga. They’ve dressed up for the first time in ages, and her hair is finally long again, the exact same shade of blond as it was when they first met.

It’s Christmas Eve, but they somehow managed to find a babysitter for the kids – a Russian girl who celebrates Christmas at a later date, according to her religion – and now they are enjoying the festive evening together, a well-earned and long-awaited treat. Trying to enjoy, at least, because Carrie insisted on  _ “buying local” _ this time, and they’re stuck in this pompous white-cloth restaurant which is packed with tourists from all over the globe. So much for an authentic ambience.

Finally, the drinks arrive – two shots of Riga Black Balsam: traditional for him, black currant for her, or at least that’s what the waitress thought. The traditional version is a hellish mixture of herbal extracts and hard liquor, resembling a medieval cold remedy rather than a proper European aperitif, but whatever – they’re frozen to half-death after a stroll across the Old Town, so they don’t waste time on long toasts. After the potion burns its way down his throat, he wants to say something nice and befitting, but all he can master is “fuck, I’ll never get used to this shit!” She laughs wholeheartedly, almost carelessly, and her laughter is like alcohol, stronger than alcohol. He still can’t believe they’ve made it this far.

Lost in the magic of the moment, he doesn’t think there will be be a better time, so he fumbles for his present in his pocket – a dark blue velvet ring box – and slides it over to her across the table without a word. She looks perplexed as she opens it.

“What’s that, an engagement ring?”

“Yeah.”

“Quinn. We’ve been married for… almost four years, Jesus.”

“Yeah. I didn’t get you one back then.”

And that’s it. She sometimes wonders if she’s married to the most reticent man on the planet. At times, it makes her furious (like now), but then again, there must have been a lot of nasty words he wisely kept to himself as well. In the light of a tiny candle on their table, she discreetly checks the ring for an engraving, a phrase, a word, their initials, something, but it’s perfectly smooth on the inside, except for a tiny hallmark. Her quest doesn’t quite escape his attention. 

His eyes narrow: “White gold. And the stone is a sapphire. Merry Christmas.”

Carrie is embarrassed, vexed by this misunderstanding and by his cynicism, and still confused about the entire situation. She does her best to bite her tongue, though: “Not that I was wondering. Thank you, it’s beautiful. Merry Christmas.”

She almost says  _ “Merry fucking Christmas,”  _ and he can see it. He appreciates that she doesn’t, but there is no way for him to say what he meant to tell her this evening.

They don’t talk much during the dinner, carefully avoiding discussion of kids, household  matters or their past, which leaves few conversation topics. The world is a mess, globally and locally, and this evening, they really need a break. Slowly, the beauty of the place starts to come through to them – the fairytale light, the music of languages spoken around them, familiar and unintelligible, the delicate, trickling sound of the jazz string quartet which is keeping the place alive this night… He runs his fingers up and down her hand, they trade smiles back and forth, there’s banter and laughter, and then silence again – but a warm kind of silence.

When it’s time to leave, he helps her with her coat – she has never ceased to be amazed by how naturally this old-fashioned gallantry comes to him, given… everything. He turns her around and pulls her closer, gently, and she feels his lips on her forehead. He says something, but it’s not even a whisper; it’s a breath on her temple, barely discernible. “I love you.”

What is it about these three words which makes the need to hear them so urgent? It’s not like he’s ever given her reason to doubt it, but she is suddenly lightheaded, breathless, unsteady on her feet, and why shouldn’t she be? He’s never said it before.

She doesn’t answer immediately, but she knows she will. Someday. Soon. Maybe tonight.

 


	2. Or 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of culture, blood, and alarm systems.

The kids are tucked in for the night, already fast asleep. Carrie is sitting on the carpet between two small beds, exhausted after a long day, her eyes wandering around the room, pausing on the kids’ faces with soft, angelic features. Buddy. Frannie. They’re children now, little human beings more than anything else – more than their parents’ genes, more than their ethnicities, more than their past and their legacy they’re not even aware of. And yet she is unable to shut out from her mind the horrendous, hair-rising circumstances which made the two of them siblings and the four of them – a family.  

She’s been having a persistent nightmare recently: running along a narrow, never-ending rope bridge above a pitch-black abyss full of writhing, hissing creatures, she is dragging the kids by their tiny, sweaty palms, which are about to slip out of her hands. She can’t see the other side, she can’t bear to look down, and when she tries to see the kids’ faces, she can’t see them either.

The worst part is remembering the dream throughout the day, especially after dark. This time, it feels like an impending panic attack which she struggles to breathe through, clenching a fluffy dog-shaped cushion until her knuckles are numb. She knows it’s not her condition – the medication is in place. She hasn’t missed a pill in months. She knows it will go away after a good night of sleep and a morning run along the shore, but she has come to hate evenings lately. Especially those when Quinn works late and doesn’t come home until the kids are in bed.

Finally, there’s a rustling sound of the approaching car. A beep of the alarm at the entrance, a shorter beep when the alarm is turned back on. Another alarm at the front door, off and back on. She’s heard the sequence so many times that she doesn’t have to count to tell when the sound will come. And now his steps on the stairs – eleven of them, and three steps to the door. Breathe in – breathe out. Still clenching the cushion for dear life, she tries to smile: “Hey.”

“Hey. You okay?” Without waiting for an answer, he settles on the floor behind her back and starts to rub her shoulders and neck with his hands, gently and slowly at first, then more vigorously, feeling the tension go away, little by little, until she sinks back into his embrace, turning her head for a brief, soft kiss, and murmurs: “I am now. I was thinking.” 

They talk in languid whispers.

“About?”

“The kids. Do you think we’ll tell them someday?”

“We’ll have to tell them something. But we have some time. Why worry now?”

“It’s Buddy. I was wondering… You think we should we teach him some Farsi? It’s his culture, after all. It’s in his blood.”

“I don’t believe in culture. What happened to his family was also a part of that culture.” He pauses, thinking about something entirely different, a long-gone past he has never shared with anyone. “I don’t believe in blood either,” he adds under his breath.

“What happened to his family was caused by people like  _ us _ who keep saying stupid fucking things like the one you just said…”

Carrie is back on track and apparently intent on developing her idea further. They’ve had this argument so many times that they don’t even get angry at each other, simply following familiar patterns. But tonight he’s too tired even for that, so he interrupts:

“Culture, yeah, fucking fine, I’m all for it. But why limit ourselves? I’d have given him a Jewish name – Leon, or Samuel – and we could be lighting fucking candles at Hanukkah in the memory of his non-existent, but deceased Uncle Aaron… ”

At this point, she hits him with the cushion, hissing, “you’re fucking hopeless! What  _ do _ you believe in?”

“Us.” He pulls her to her feet and kisses before she says anything else. “And alarm systems. Let’s go get some sleep.”

 


	3. Or 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Copper curls and kisses.

Liene, the intern kindergarten psychologist, is looking at a colored-pencil drawing by Frannie, a willful and  charming four-year-old. A multicolored explosion of a family portrait. But the first impression is deceptive ­– when she looks closer, she is amazed at the number of details and precision with which they are rendered. A strong penchant for visual perception, coupled with a potential for analytical thinking and the optimistic nature of a kid who feels loved and protected. Liene can’t help but smile, recalling the stubborn fireball of a girl throwing around crayons when she was told they weren’t going to draw a fairy-tale castle this time.

The positioning of the figures indicates a strong bond between the parents and a pronounced rivalry with her elder brother – no surprises there. She has hardly ever seen two kids who are so different. Gentle, thoughtful, a bit self-conscious, Bud is a striking contrast to his younger sister.

No matter how hard Liene looks for something amiss, any sign of trouble, she can’t find anything worth more detailed attention. Which is surprising. Frannie and Bud’s dossier is the thickest in their group, filled with all sorts of documents – the intricate paperwork of an adoption and two cross-adoptions across several national borders, translations, apostilles and copies of copies, dappled with so many stamps you could barely see the document.

Two kids in the family, the mother is the biological mother of one, the father is the biological father of none, emigration to the other side the Atlantic for unclear reasons – quite a family history. Which is, of course, none of Liene’s business, outside the context of its potential influence on the kids. However, it takes her all her professionalism to abstain from prying and gossiping. They are an enigmatic couple, the parents.

During their interactions with Liene and her colleagues, they have always been civil, yet aloof, and totally not upholding the stereotype she had about Americans being open-hearted and easygoing to the point of chatty. The popular theory about peach and coconut cultures, which she picked up in  _ Psychologies _ or a similar glossy magazine, has failed her miserably. According to it, every nation has its own style of communication: some are friendly, but refrain from establishing intimate relationships too soon – like the soft, juicy meat of a peach with a hard stone in the middle, which protects the most important part – while others are reserved, but if they let you in, they are for real; if you crack a coconut open, it just pours out and there’s no stopping it. 

Nonetheless, if your average American was a peach, and your average Latvian a coconut, these two were a pair of crocodile eggs: a thick, polished shell which resisted any exposure and could be hiding, well, basically anything. A fictitious marriage. Home abuse. A criminal past.  _ “Labor migration from the US to Latvia, really?”   _ Liene has been doing her best to refrain from personal observations and judgments, but she isn’t always successful.

The mother is a strong leader, a go-getter who would never take no for an answer, presumably a strict parent.  _ “Bossy, pushy, arrogant bitch!... Liene. It’s unprofessional.” _ The father would occasionally put on a strict air, too: “Frances, that was way out of line!” What a phrase to say to a four-year-old! Surprisingly, he seems to be the emotional anchor of the family, laid-back, but always in control, a natural-born alpha parent.  _ “And hot, he’s so damn hot.” _

As to what could be hiding beneath the thick eggshell, it was only once that she had a glimpse of it. Returning from her lunch break on a short day, she saw a familiar car in a neighboring lane and this couple in the front seat, kissing like their lives depended on it. Who’d have thought?  _ “Making out! They are making out!” _ She is still ashamed to recall how she stood there, transfixed, mesmerized, unable to look away…  _ “Ah, there we go, daydreaming again.” _

Casting a look at the clock, Liene goes out of her study to catch up with the parents of the kids she has worked with today. The American mom is already here, looking for Bud in the playroom, Frannie already in her arms, chattering incessantly, delighted at mommy’s new hair, a soft cloud of copper curls, just a shade darker than her daughter’s. She has changed half a dozen hairstyles and dyes over a couple of years – nothing to disapprove of, but a bit weird, given the austere, purely functional style of her clothes.

The intern calls out: “Caroline!”

Carrie almost hears her brain perform the habitual  _ “click,”  _ as she turns at the sound of her new name.

 


	4. Or 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A study in white.

The Baltic Sea doesn’t offer the eye-piercing turquoise of southern seas or the dramatic vehemence of the ocean. It’s shallow, barely salty, with brownish water and stinky seaweed. When the sky is overcast, especially when it’s foggy, the seascape wraps you in a soft gray veil, swallowing all shadows and muffling all sounds – your personal limbo, a sensory deprivation chamber of planetary scale. Contrary to the first impression, this emptiness, this numbness of nature is not depressive; it’s healing and perfect.

On a beautifully gray Saturday morning, they are sitting on the beach with the kids, trying to catch their breath after a particularly crazy working week. His business, a small company offering various burglar alarms, locks, and smart security systems, has become a raging success after the new marketing campaign was launched. 

Short videos about DIY anti-intrusion devices and lifehacks have gone viral in no time, generating dozens of new customers. Of course, he knows better than to show his face on Latvian YouTube, and he has never been much of a media expert, so his new associate proved invaluable at that point. A couple months back, he’d helped a venturous tech student out of a stressful situation which had involved poor life choices, a mid-sized batch of weed and a local thug. Now the lad serves him with medieval loyalty, combining the functions of courier, translator, personal assistant, marketing representative and sometimes even babysitter.

Following the advice of Carrie’s new colleagues at the English Language and Culture Center, they have bought a house in a drowsy seaside settlement called Garciems, on the other side of Riga from the hectic, overcrowded resort of Jurmala. Their house is just three minutes away from the beach, along a plank-laid path in the forest. 

Quinn has equipped the neat four-bedroom cottage with the best security systems from his company’s stock, and a few custom-made appliances he never put on sale. His primary reason for buying this house was a large underground cell beneath the garage, and he got down to securing it with such grim determination that Carrie never made that joke about the home, the castle and taking proverbs literally.

Having settled absent-mindedly on the sand beside their mat, she is now browsing through an online magazine on interior design, a revered professional periodical, with remarkable concentration, sometimes muttering ideas and questions under her breath.

“Eggshell… What the f­... is eggshell?” They are trying hard to abstain from swear words in front of the kids, but the kids can’t hear them anyway: one-year-old Frannie is sleeping in her stroller, and Buddy is basking in the fine, warm sand of the dune a dozen meters away from them.

“The color of a chicken egg?” he answers automatically, too busy watching sand trickle through his fingers and down her tanned ankles. As much as he admires Carrie’s talent to delve head over heels into any field she takes interest in, the point of becoming a designer just to renovate the nursery completely escapes him.

“Well, it leaves us two options at least. Oh, wait, it can also refer to all non-glossy paints, regardless of the color. Jesus, you live and learn!.. So… It brings us to a conclusion that eggshell white could either be an off-white tint or a matte version of pure white…” 

She sighs, flicks through a few pages and pauses, trying to find the right viewing angle. “Mint cream or honeydew… I can’t see any difference. They’re fucking identical, Quinn, help me out here!”

“What…? Where…?” He casts a brief glance. “This one’s warmer. Kind of greenish.”

“Wait, which one? Honeydew? How did you… Are you sure?” She’s almost annoyed at his certainty.  _ “How can you be a fucking natural at so many things?” _ She loves him for it, though.

“Yes, Carrie, I am sure. You can’t see straight, give your eyes a break.”

They never comment on each other’s obsessions. He is building a bunker. She is picking a shade of white for the kids’ room. Whatever works. Considering their bleak prospects if the cover is blown, it’s hard to say whose efforts are more futile. They are living in a sandcastle built on a powder keg – but when he struggles to recall a brighter time in his life, he invariably fails, and so does she.

 


	5. Or 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New skin for the old ceremony.

Her tongue on his clavicle, tasting the salty skin. His wet hair slipping through her fingers. Her nipples sending electric shocks through her body as his hand runs across them. The smooth silk of her thighs. His hoarse breath against her neck. Moans muffled with kisses. Biting her lips to stay quiet, biting his lips because she wants to.

When they have sex for the first time, they don’t know what to make of it.

They have been renting a small whitewashed cottage in Jurmala since Frances was born, three months ago. The apartment where they’d lived before had started to feel claustrophobic, and sustained some memories neither of them wanted to keep. So a spacious cottage at a seaside resort for the summer seemed just right – now that they could afford it. But as soon as they moved in, they started fighting, nagging and pecking each other, not speaking for days, and then fighting again, unable to deal with one particularly cumbersome animal in the room. 

So in the middle of yet another fight, when they reach yet another deadlock, and she is accusing, and he is obnoxious, and she is bitter, and he is downright rude, and they can’t even scream at each other properly because the kids are asleep… He walks up to her and takes off her t-shirt in one brisk move. She is so taken aback she doesn’t even protest. They lock eyes. He takes off his own shirt. At this point there can be no misunderstanding, and she accepts the challenge. After all, they’re on lousy terms even for fake spouses, and she hasn’t had sex for ages, so how much worse can it get?

They start kissing, they move to her bedroom, and at first, they take it slowly – and it’s bewildering, magic, inexplicable. Her mind wanders off, trying to see through what’s happening. She’s been with many men, but it’s hardly ever been about technically good or bad sex for her.  Estes was frustratingly mediocre. Brody had his moments, but with him, it was always more about their mind games and the weird, bitter unity between them. Her most satisfying erotic experiment was with a nameless one-night-stand in Seattle – what was she even doing there? Or was the guy from Seattle? Either way, she couldn’t care less.

With Quinn, it’s… romantic? Tender? You don’t use such words referring to fuckbuddy sex which started from a fight and which is about to ruin a vitally important fictitious marriage. Besides, tender is not the point – soon it’s becoming intense and even rough at times. It’s sincere, ruthlessly sincere, clashing them against each other at full speed, no time to regroup or pretend. It sends all their arrangements tumbling down, one friction at a time.

When it’s over, their heartbeats are deafeningly loud against the stillness of the night. She can feel his arms around her as she falls asleep, caught in the moment like an insect in a drop of amber.

He can’t sleep. Sneaking out to the terrace, lighting a cigarette with slightly shaking hands, he feels bare, flayed, turned inside out; all the comfortable lies which justified their union – an open marriage, being there for the kids, doing the right thing together, struggling for survival in a new country – have burst like bubbles, or rather, peeled off like old snakeskin. Only the new skin isn’t there yet – they need to grow it together, one skin for the two of them.

She wakes up to an empty sunlit cottage – the best sleep she’s had in ages – slips on her bathrobe and wanders to the kitchen, feeling the warmth of tiled floor where the sun has heated it. God, it must be late. The kitchen is a mess; a single-handed breakfast with a toddler and an infant is a hell of an undertaking. It’s amazing that she didn’t hear anything. A sticky note on the fridge:

“Took kids to the beach. Not an open marriage anymore.”

_ “Never was.” _ She wants to add it to the note, but it’s silly, apologetic, and after all, one of them has to be able to actually talk. 

 


	6. Or 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead man in Tehran.

The news is an Internet sensation. “Leader of Iranian Revolutionary Guard assassinated in his office.” “Iranian leader Danesh Akbari killed by rogue ex-congressman.” “A hero or a disgrace of the nation?” It’s all over the media – an American asylum-seeker in Iran, who is also a known terrorist, wanted for the Langley bombing, has been apprehended, found guilty, court-martialed and publicly hanged in a square in Tehran, all in the span of 72 hours.

Quinn is reading about it on the tablet as they’re having breakfast. Buddy is fumbling with his oatmeal, Carrie is making toast. The sun which fills their tiny kitchen is remarkably bright and warm for early March in the Baltic states – a promise of spring, echoing their hope for peaceful happiness, smothered suddenly by this absurd, hair-raising incident.

“Motherfucker,” he mutters to himself.

“Mind your f... language,” Carrie hisses, but he simply hands her the tablet: “Read it yourself.”

She freezes on the spot, her eyes fixed on the screen, then slowly sits down on the stool and doesn’t move for a good hour, reading, comparing, matching stories, putting the scarce bits of information together. It’s not a canard; it’s literally everywhere. The coffee grows cold, the sky becomes overcast and dull-white again, the nanny comes and takes Buddy for the day – but Carrie doesn’t move. She is pale, ghost-like, with dry reddish eyes, tousling her hair incessantly.

He waits, doing his own research, ready to be there for her when she feels like talking. When she finally does, it’s the brilliant, ruthless officer Carrie Mathison speaking, not the vulnerable, broken pregnant woman who’s just lost the father of her child.

“The political asylum thing – it was a play. I’m positive it was. Javadi never was the endgame, I should have known. Saul aimed for Akbari, getting the snake’s head. It was a targeted assassination. He wasn’t acting on his own.”

_ “Carrie, what are you talking about? Javadi’s a fucking corpse, we blew the entire thing. Brody was a lunatic on the run.” _ But it’s a bad moment for arguing over theories, and he does his best to pick his words carefully, tiptoeing across the minefield of her personal disaster.

“There’s no way of knowing it, Carrie. Even if he didn’t blow up the CIA, he put on the fucking vest. If I were him, seeking asylum in a country like Iran would be a valid option. You can’t be on the run forever. As for Akbari, we’ll never know what happened between him and Brody. The man wasn’t exactly stable…”

His efforts are in vain. She is so busy hiding her pain behind the irrelevant façade of cold professionalism that she barely listens, immersed in her own thoughts, and interrupts him – agitated, accusatory, bitter, almost losing it:

“Fucking Saul… How did they even find him? They used him, Quinn, they fucking used him as a weapon, they threatened and brainwashed him again, they never believed me when I said he wasn’t the Langley bomber!”

_ “That’s one way of looking at it.” _ He doesn’t say it, of course. Instead, he says, “one way or another, he did the right thing after all.”

“He’s not a fool; he knew that the extraction plan was fiction, even if they promised him one, and yet he went through with it, Quinn, he didn’t back out, he didn’t fail or change sides, he…” 

The tears finally come.

“Good for him. If you’re right, he deserves a fucking star.” Surprisingly, he has to admit to himself that he means it. Carrie doesn’t answer, but he knows she’s grateful.

Throughout the day, she lies on her bed, snuggling uncomfortably under a thin fleece comforter which crackles with static electricity. This barely audible crackling is the only sound he can hear from her room. At dusk, she heads for the door with a hefty cardboard box in her hands, pressed clumsily against her last-trimester bump. He remembers seeing this box on the upper shelf of her wardrobe, but he never looked inside.

“You need a hand?” 

“No. I need a lighter... Not for smoking,” she adds defensively. He provides a lighter, puts a hat on her head and a scarf around her neck – nights are still frosty here. The unusual obedience with which she accepts his care is both reassuring and disturbing.

Out of their ground-floor windows, he watches her crumple a newspaper sheet from the box and set fire to it on a slab of concrete in the yard. More cuts follow, headlines, photos, dozens of them; for all this time, she must have continued her worldwide quest for Brody across the media. With an inherent splash of orange, red or rusty on each of them, they seem to take fire with particular eagerness, like match heads.

After brief consideration, he decides against joining her. It’s her memorial service, her final goodbye. Brody’s not their work anymore. He’s not an asset or a suspect. He was the third element of their unsolved, imbalanced equation, but now that he’s out, the solution is nowhere near.

 


	7. Or 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Money becomes a problem.

Money becomes a problem.

Carrie had planned to lead a humble, solitary life for the first few years, not support a family of three (and a half). After the hole made in her savings by the ridiculous, unbelievable cost of their paperwork, there’s also the rent, the nanny, a few bribes, medical check-ups for Carrie, and other expenses. They have around 2000 euros left, which doesn’t put them on the brink of starvation as yet – but pretty close to it in a month’s time. Job search has proven generally fruitless for both of them because of the language barrier and Carrie’s prospective maternity leave. Quinn is working part-time as a freight mover at a neighboring construction-chemicals warehouse, but it barely covers the food.

One night he comes home to find her in a particularly shitty mood.

“Might as well have stayed home,” she says instead of a hi.

“How about some fucking gratitude?”

“How about finding a proper fucking job? You’re a Harvard graduate, for Christ’s sake, think of something!”

“No, I’m not!” he snarls without thinking.

“Yes, you are! Wait. What do you mean you’re not?”

“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” His voice is suddenly very quiet. “I can kill people, Carrie. That’s what I did for a living.”

“Well, then moving pallets for six bucks an hour is a hell of an atonement!”

“Fuck you. What you did wasn’t fucking humanitarian aid either.”

He slams the door and he’s gone for the night. Carrie presumes he’s gone to the bar across the street, which he has frequented recently. Fuck him. She goes to bed; her alternative medication scheme, which has been adjusted to minimize harm for the embryo, has been keeping her drowsy and fatigued all the time. Or maybe it’s how most pregnant women feel, especially if they have to get up a few times a night to calm down a fussy one-year-old.

In the morning, when Buddy’s nanny comes – a strict gray-haired lady, a former English teacher – Quinn’s still not there. Carrie wants to stay angry, but his absence starts to give her an unpleasant shiver. The TV in the living room is on, broadcasting local news – she sometimes watches it for language practice because her Latvian is pretty much nowhere.

The nanny pauses in front of the screen, shaking her head: “Ak Dievs…” 

“What, what is it?” 

“A lot of people shot not far from here.” 

“Where, what is she saying?” 

The nanny switches off the TV set. “Don’t worry yourself with it, Caroline. Not good for your health. They were bad people, Russian mafia. Good riddance, as you say. Come, Buddy, time for a little walk!”

_ “Where the fuck is Quinn?”  _ His phone is off, but that could mean anything. She goes online to find out more about the massacre, but the information provided by English-language media is rather limited. All she can gather is the general bewilderment as to who might be behind it and the scope of consequences – an entire mafia cell deprived of its leadership.

Quinn doesn’t return for six long days. Drunk, in a hospital, in jail, out of the country. Dead. Or living a bright new life without them a few blocks away.  On Sunday morning, there’s a black bag at her doorstep. A bag of euro notes with a dead phone in it. When she plugs it in, knowing this could be the last thing she ever does, there’s a single message inside, a draft of a text: “Meet you in two weeks.” No numbers, no address. And yet she’s so relieved, she bursts crying in front of the open bag.

In two weeks, not a day more, he opens the door with his key late at night. Carrie is sitting in the kitchen, alert and restless. She jumps to her feet as he walks in, limping slightly, with a two-week growth of stubble on a gray face.

“Jesus, Quinn, are you all right? Where were you? The money…”

“Yeah… Mowed some lawns.”

The questions are burning her on the inside, but you don’t ask them when a man has sold his soul to save you.

 


	8. Or 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding without a party.

During their first weeks in Riga, they are lying low, always on full alert. They rent a random apartment, trying to avoid too many contacts, and it’s a Soviet-style apartment in the outskirts. Neither of them has ever paid attention to décor, but who’d have thought there are interiors that make you want to puke in any case. Crystal chandeliers straight from the 70s, carpets on walls, eye-gouging whimsical wallpaper and dark varnished furniture – the stuffy, forceful coziness is more depressing and ominous than bare concrete walls. But it looks like it’s good for the price, and there are three rooms – a room for each of them – which is also great, because they still can’t get used to cramped European spaces. And there’s too much left unsaid between them. In fact, nothing has been said.

The apartment has got yet another disgusting feature – low soundproofing. Shitty panels which make up walls seem to amplify sounds instead of absorbing them. So when Carrie hears a clatter of small plastic objects against the tile floor, she knows it can only mean one thing. She runs to the bathroom to find Quinn, wet and half-naked, wrapped in a towel, staring perplexedly at a few dozen white sticks with blue stripes.

“Ah… Fuck… Carrie, what are these?”

“As if you’ve never seen a pregnancy test before.” She’s pissed with him discovering the evidence of her stupid, obsessive habit more than the proof of her pregnancy. But that, too.

“Never knew it took you so many to find out. So are you?”

“I am.” Her chin starts to wobble.

_ “Please, Carrie, not now.”  _ He really sucks at these conversations. “Are you gonna… ”

“And  _ that _ is none of your fucking business!” She knows it’s not quite right. They’re still a team. “But yes, I’m keeping it.”

“Fuck.”

And  _ that  _ is one of the cases when casual swearing really hurts.

“Message received.” She bursts out of the bathroom and starts packing hectically, by the sound of it. He follows, desperate to make things right, to explain himself, anything to stop her from leaving, anything to keep her, to make her stay. Anything but a due apology.

“Carrie, what is wrong with you? Where are you going?”

“I’ll find another apartment. You’ll have to take care of Buddy for a while.” She’s not looking at him, speaking in a flat, cold tone.

“I have a better plan. We get married.” Now she is looking at him, incredulous, almost snorting with laughter, but refraining from it. At this point it occurs to him that he’s still dressed in a towel.

“What? No! Why the fuck would I do that?”

Time to get inventive.

“We’ll soon have two kids to take care of. Sheer survival. We can share a nice place with enough room. The kids can play together. We’ll get our first legal document on top of our horseshit paperwork. Might help in the future...”

He makes a huge, gaping pause after each argument, and when he runs out of them, the last pause swells into a chilly, trembling silence, which separates him from her like a two-way mirror, laying him bare before her unreadable, scrutinizing stare. But when she takes her eyes off him, she doesn’t laugh or sneer. 

_ “She’s considering it. Fuck, she’s really, actually considering it!” _

“Not bad, actually,” she finally utters with a slow nod. “I’d never thought about it. We can get divorced in a few years. Real couples do it all the time.”

“Sure.” He tries his best to fake a light, nonchalant tone.

“And it’s an  _ open _ marriage, right?” It’s funny how she totally can’t make herself say “fictitious.”

“As you say, Carrie.”

His proposal leaves Carrie flummoxed. He’s reasonable, considerate, caring – a perfect friend, even though he can be an asshole sometimes. However, it’s pathetic how offended she feels at the lightness with which he agreed to a fictitious marriage.

They make an appointment at the registry office for the day after. As they walk in, she’s wearing a white summer dress she just bought in a thrift shop – to stay inconspicuous rather than festive; her hair is short and dyed chestnut, which makes her look pale and older than she is; her bump has started to show. He looks tense and grim – as he always does lately, constantly on the lookout.  A working-class couple in a dire situation, eligible for immediate registration of marriage on the grounds of the bride’s pregnancy.

After the registration, they walk through the park, quickly and silently. She can’t stop thinking, she’s tired of it, she’s tired of everything, but there’s a missing element to the picture. A question she forgot to ask. 

Suddenly it starts raining, showering, actually. They take cover under a large tree with disappointingly scarce foliage. He takes off his jacket and puts it around her shoulders – a slightly familiar gesture; only she can’t remember where and when he did it before. But it helps her find the right question – and it’s a pretty obvious one.

“Quinn. Why are  _ you _ doing this?”

“You’re gonna catch a cold, it’s fucking pouring.”

“No, not the jacket, I’ll keep it, thanks. The marriage. The kids. I mean… Buddy was my idea. You helped us get out, and I’m really grateful to you. We wouldn’t have made it through that fucking mess without you. But now we’re fine. You could have left ages ago. Why didn’t you?”

He smiles in reply, with that formal smile of his which he always puts on when he wants to drop the subject. Not this time.

“Quinn. Why didn’t you?”

He stares at her for a long time, and there is pain and longing in his eyes, and there is an answer, but what he says is different.

“I still can. It’s a fictitious marriage, right, Carrie?” 

She hesitates. 

“Right? So should I?”

“No. Please don’t,” she whispers.

“I won’t.”

 


	9. Or 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New names and new beginnings.

Whatever Carrie does, she takes no chances. Even if it seems otherwise. Even if no one is there to believe in her. Quinn believes in her – in her passionate intelligence, in her almost animal intuition. He has seen too many rational, cold-headed commanders make wrong calls that send people to sure death.

As much as he respected her work as an intelligence officer, little did he know that it was the tip of the iceberg compared to the thoroughness and audacity of her fallback scheme. His shabby safehouse in a Mexican shithole is no comparison – he’d never been too serious about his own plan B, as his chances of survival had never been too high anyway. So they go for Carrie’s plan, which climaxes in a dashing flight across the Atlantic in a private jet belonging to a Middle Eastern billionaire who owes Carrie, big time. Their final destination is Riga, Latvia – the outskirts of the European Union, remote enough from the CIA stations in the Old World. The choice of a country seems random, but it’s probably for the best.

On the plane, they don’t talk much, for fear of being overheard by the crew and also because their little companion clearly doesn’t enjoy the ride and takes up all the attention. When he’s finally done screaming and falls asleep, they are so exhausted that they opt for a few hours of rest too. They sit next to each other, the baby sleeping comfortably in their lap – the stakes are too high, so they decide against trying to move him to his safety seat. Carrie ruffles his chestnut curls gently and looks up at Quinn.

“Why are you calling him Buddy?”

“Why not.” He shrugs. “Do you know his real name?”

“Nope. We’ll have to think of something.” She closes her eyes drowsily.

_ “We’ll have to think of pretty much everything.” _

As she sinks into sleep with her head on his shoulder, the sense of reality starts to finally creep on him. The golden mane of her tousled hair, dark shadows on her cheeks cast by her lashes with tiny clumps of yesterday’s makeup, her lips, chapped from dry high-altitude air, her warmth against his side – being so close to her is haunting, overwhelming, it is the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time. It feels right.

Anyway, the luxurious part of their ultimate escape is over as soon as they walk down the stairs in a small airport outside Warsaw. In a few hours, he is pacing the dimly lit passages of a semi-functional industrial facility in the suburbs with Buddy in his arms, waiting for Carrie to return with their new forged papers and IDs.

Finally, the riveted metal door slides open and lets Carrie out with a pile of freshly printed certificates and forms. She puffs a strand of hair off her face, sweaty and worked up.

“It’s a fucking sauna in there. These are Buddy’s. Let’s go over them quickly.”

He looks at the papers and it’s fucking unbelievable.

“Archibald Anderson, really? Archibald? You realize we’re gonna have to use it?”

She snaps back: “No, we’re not! We can continue calling him Buddy. And he can change it later if he wants to. And get the hell out of my face – faking an adoption scheme from scratch is not a piece of cake! Turns out they’ve got filled-in templates for each day. Today’s other options were Eisenhower, Patton, Connor and MacArthur.”

“Fuck me. Is he going down some ‘Dumb Names for Boys’ list?”

“He’s an expert on international documents, not a baby-name generator for young parents!”

“Right. Archibald it is... Wait. Did you say Connor? Connor is cool. Can we call him Connor?”

“No, we can’t. It’s done. Besides, I’m glad you like it because  _ you’re _ Connor now. Connor Smith, nice to meet you.”

_ “Connor Smith. Peter Quinn. Same shit.” _ In the beginning, he wasn’t too keen on his previous legal name either. But anything is better than being a John Doe – which he was for a while.

“Will do. And you must be?”

“Caroline. Caroline Anderson.”

She smiles her gleaming, reckless, daring smile, and he knows that here, in this godforsaken sweatshop, is their new beginning.  They’re running high on adrenaline, still in operation mode, oblivious to hints and nuances, but the force that’s really keeping them together has already started to uncoil.

 


	10. Or 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The countdown begins.

Javadi has been inside the house for a good five minutes. They’re late. The first thing that strikes Carrie as they enter is the thick, metallic smell of blood, barely discernible, but sickening, suffocating, sending her in panic. Two female bodies on the floor, lying in pools of blood. Javadi with a broken bottleneck, covered in their blood from head to toe.

Quinn doesn’t blink an eye, but when he speaks, it’s all in his voice, a contained fury, a cold, controlled menace: “Stop or I shoot. Show me your hands.”

Saul’s command resonate in their headpieces: “Someone talk to me.”

“Now I’m ready to see Saul.” Javadi looks like a vampire, a huge, diabolical mosquito who’s just satiated his age-old thirst.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices some movement. A baby. Unharmed, innocent. Unsuspecting. “Oh, Jesus.” Something turns upside down in her stomach, making her forget everything – her work, their plan, the importance, the consequences…

Saul goes ballistic on the phone: “One of you tell me please what the fuck is happening!”

Quinn casts a quick glance at Carrie, who’s standing on his left. She’s not well – having a breakdown, a panic attack, a fit, whatever, shaking and gasping for air. Not well is not good. Not well is fucking dangerous, when the person has a gun. One thing too many to control. He gets back to Saul:

“He shot his daughter-in-law in the head and then he...”

The first shot comes, making him jump aside and take cover behind the corner. Two more shots. Javadi drops to the side without a sound, undoubtedly dead. The gun slips from Carrie’s hands as she bends in half, vomiting on the floor. She lost it. She lost it for real – it’s not a play anymore.

In the temporary deafness after the shots, Quinn’s mind starts working incredibly fast. The operation is over. They fucked it up. They shot a foreign politician who wasn’t even supposed to be here. Carrie did. What happens to her now, a trial? Another psych ward? Another round of ECT? What happens to him, testifying against her in court? More nightmares? Watching her as she is dragged away and never seeing her again? Suddenly the thought of eating a bullet and dropping dead by Javadi’s side seems like a viable option. But there is another option, too.

He catches his breath, taps on his headpiece and updates Saul: “We’re on. No losses. Javadi had another gun, he tried to attack us. He was shot. Self-defense.”

Saul goes silent for a while. They wait, not budging an inch. He gets back to them, ominously composed: “Listen to me. You need to take Javadi’s body with you and leave, right now. Take Javadi’s car. You were never there.”

“Copy that.” Quinn kills his headpiece and gestures for Carrie to do the same.

They’re alone now. With three dead bodies and a whining baby. She’s shaking, but more or less steady on her feet, mumbling in a feeble voice: “Quinn, shit. I don’t know… what… Thank you.”

“Later. We don’t have much time before Saul gets to us.”

“What... what do you mean?” He can tell she’s getting more focused.

“This self-defense shit – no one’s gonna buy it. We’re fucked, Carrie. Time to disappear, and fast.”

“Why did you…?” It starts to dawn on her what’s actually happening.

“Not now. We need a bag, to put a large cushion in it. Drones, remember?”

“Now you’re losing me. A cushion?”

“Carrie, we’re being watched. They expect us to bring along Javadi.”

She nods, then waves vaguely toward the kitchen. “The baby. We can’t leave him.”

“Then fucking take him! Move, Carrie, move!”

There’s a large suitcase in the hall. He throws the clothes from it to the floor, she puts the baby in. The boy screeches in an inhuman voice. Well, it’s hard to blame him. Thank god he’s too young to understand the rest.

“Sorry, buddy,” mutters Quinn, pulling the zipper.  _ “Life in foster care is worse than a minute in a suitcase, take it from me.” _

They head for the door with a shrieking suitcase and a burning desire to get to the other side of the globe as soon as possible. It’s good that drones don’t hear sounds.

 

**Author's Note:**

> To Leblanc1 and Ascloseasthis, my kind and tireless betareaders. Tons of gratitude and hugs! This wouldn't have been half as much fun without you!


End file.
